Having contributed as a staff writer at the Spencer Daily Reporter for just shy of a year, Seth Boyes joined the Dickinson County News staff in March of 2017. In his first week at the DCN, Seth covered a train derailment near Graettinger. The tankers carrying ethanol burst into flames. Seth's photo of the event won first place for Best Breaking News photo at the 2018 Iowa Newspaper Association Convention and Trade Show in February. He won a second Best Breaking News Photo award for a shot of the fire at Zippers Gentlemen's Club that April, and also won awards for Master Columnist and Best Blog. Boyes graduated from Iowa State University in 2009 with a degree in Integrated Studio Arts. His original cartoons run regularly in the Spencer Daily Reporter and the DCN. Both he and his wife Janet hail from Clear Lake and have come to expect summers to be full of the hustle and bustle of tourists and visitors.

Power of the people

Posted Saturday, November 3, 2018, at 10:03 PM

Election Day will not satisfy us. We often think it will, but it won't. Each side hopes their chosen "wave" (both of which sound like Kool-aid flavors to me) will win the day and right everything wrong with society.

If only it were that easy.

Fact of the matter is, problems will persist no matter which primary color dominates the government - local or national. People will always need healthcare, veterans will always need to be taken care off and we're unlikely to ever agree on how taxes should be collected and distributed. Yet, when our party of choice is in power, we often believe things are being done the right way (and I'll apply that term loosely for both parties).

So, I try to let myself ponder this conundrum each election cycle. I try to get a fix on just why it is that things never quite get solved even when they're thought to be moving in the right direction. Perhaps not surprisingly, this little thought puzzle leads me down a different path each time. It could be that the roster of legislators is consistently shifting. It could be the length of session. It could be that people keep making problems despite the laws (after all, I've been told gun legislation won't stop gun violence...but abortion legislation will really cut down on abortions, don't worry).

Which got me to this year's ponderous pathway.

Perhaps problems persist because parties don't solve problems. People do. While Election Day can be cause for either celebration or disappointment, depending on which side comes out ahead, I'm starting to believe more and more we can't simply rely on our government to bring about the change we desire. There's no law keeping us from helping to feed the hungry. There's no law preventing us from helping cloth the naked.

Of course, trouble is there are also things some of us feel are right which are indeed outlawed. On the surface, that seems to be the end of it, but let's remember there used to be laws in this country preventing some populations from voting.

Change isn't impossible, but it takes people.

So, don't be disappointed when the votes are counted. That's not the end - never has been. It may be one way we as a country show our preferences, but it is our actions which will truly show our heart.